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Every one of the guns were purchased legally, at gun shows, which are gaping loopholes in the system. You don't have to produce identification or be subjected to a background check at a gun show. If it's for sale, ANYONE can buy it, no questions asked. Furthermore, that ban wasn't thorough enough. It made it illegal to manufacture assault weapons, but not to own them. AND the guys who sold the kids the Tec-9 did get decent prison time, so there wasn't any major problem with the enforcement of the law. The law itself was just shitty: 1) Still being able to possess an assault weapon kind of defeats the purpose. 2) Even though the girl who bought the kids the other THREE guns intended for them to have them, she wasn't so much as charged with anything, because they were technically still hers. And the "straw purchase" statute doesn't apply to her because she bought them at a gun show. I was trying to keep this short, so I left out some stuff. Bottom line, it's way too easy to buy guns.

Virginia Tech- the assailant used handguns that were fully legal during the Ban

A severely mentally ill man was able to buy handguns on two separate occasions. At least one was from an actual legit dealer--pawn shop--that does background checks. Not sure about the other. Way too easy to buy guns.

My point is you can't un-invent guns, and shy of that, any action taken will just be to make people feel better. I don't think people should be willing to fritter away rights to make people feel better.

I really don't see how you come to that conclusion. There can be substantial changes to gun regulation that wouldn't even affect people who are fit to have them at all. I'd be cool with that, but I would want to affect them, though. No one should have access assault rifles, unless they're actively in law enforcement AND on the clock. Private collections be damned.

They should put a ban or some controls on these stupid friggin assault video games. It case you hadn't noticed, there are more than a few people in this country that have a hard time discerning fantasy from reality. These games do a shit ton of damage de-sensitizing people to life and death.

Ok lets do that,then after that is done we can go after violent tv shows and movies and after we get those taken care of, we can go after music.

The truth is video games are not to blame just like when Columbine happened they tried to blame in on them listening to Marliyn Manson. When Grand Theft Auto came out they were trying to say that this game would cause a increase in car theift and all the voilence that would go along with that. All of this is kinda like the Twinkie defence that was used when Harvey Milk was shot.

Ok...wrong. But good try. Music generally does not assault all the senses and the song stops. Modern video games are made to entrench the user. They play kill games online for hours against other people. This is a fact. They are made to appear as first person imagery. The user is absolutely 100% getting desensitized to the fact that there are no boundries and no consequences whatsoever. All the users senses (except smell) are being hammered with these dumbass games. You study enough math you become a mathematician, you immesre yourself in engineering..etc... People who play video games insessently are positively missing something upstairs in the brain box and socially awkward. There is no way you can tell me that playing thse games is a healthy passtime...no fucking way.

Ok...wrong. But good try. Music generally does not assault all the senses and the song stops. Modern video games are made to entrench the user. They play kill games online for hours against other people. This is a fact. They are made to appear as first person imagery. The user is absolutely 100% getting desensitized to the fact that there are no boundries and no consequences whatsoever. All the users senses (except smell) are being hammered with these dumbass games. You study enough math you become a mathematician, you immesre yourself in engineering..etc... People who play video games insessently are positively missing something upstairs in the brain box and socially awkward. There is no way you can tell me that playing thse games is a healthy passtime...no fucking way.

Not everyone who drinks slams shitfaced into a family of 4 either but we have rules for it. The upside is there are no adverse effects at all...the downside is catastrophic. These games are specifically engineered to capture the user in a very personal way. I believe that these games played often enough absolutely do have an adverse affect on the psyche. Plus, let's be honest, people who play these games a lot are pretty fucking pathetic to begin with. Normally low self esteem, few (if any) good friends, socially inept, can't get laid by anything other than their own hand, probably diagnosed at least sometime in their life as ADHD and were probably fed Rittalen (sp?) like candy corn to control there fucking outbursts. Pretty impressionable types with the fact that they finally have control over something in their life and the video games allows this fantasy to prosper.

I mean, there's something to what you're saying, but your generalizations are far too sweeping. The person you are describing is mentally ill. Well, you're describibg two different people, actually. One guy has video game addiction or depression, neither of which has any correlation to being violent. Of course, there's some overlap, but there is no evidence that I've seen that suggests that any amount of gaming causes an otherwise healthy person to lose it. There are just too many hardcore gamers who will never hurt anyone.I do have a bit of a problem with super immersive war games, because of their effect on unhealthy people, and that it arms those people with knowledge of how to carry out crimes. I guess. How many recent shooters were big gamers anyway?

Correct. I, for one, am a big fan of Call of Duty. However, just because I can tell you how many rounds are in an HK21 Drum Magazine, does not mean I intend to use one any time soon. Just because I can tell you what country manufactured the FAMAS does not mean that I think it is cool to buy one illegally. Just because I know what it means when a soldier says "Tango Down" does not mean that I intend to bring situations where it is neccessary to say this into being. And just because I could tell you the difference between a sniper rifle and a shotgun does not mean that I will demonstrate it to children. Got it?

I like guns. They are nice, and when China invades us, they will be useful. But in the meantime, I think that people who are mentally unstable should never even be allowed near them. Does my position make sense?